V. I. Lenin

Where is the Mistake?[1]

Written:February 23 or 24, 1918First Published:1929 in LeninMiscellanyXI Published according to the manuscriptSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, Progress
    Publishers, Moscow, Volume 27, 1972, pp. 48-50Translated:Clemans Dutt, Edited by Robert DaglishTranscription\HTML Markup:Robert Cymbala and David WaltersOnline Version:Lenin Internet
    ArchiveMarch, 2002

The outstanding and most responsible opponents of the conclusion of
a separate peace on the Brest terms have set out the essence of their
arguments in the following form:

Here are advanced the most concentrated, the most important
arguments, set out almost in the form of a resolution. For convenience
in analysing the arguments, we have numbered each proposition
separately.

When one examines these arguments, the authors’ main error
  immediately strikes the eye. They do not say a word about the
  conerete conditions of a revolutionary war at the present
  moment. The chief and fundamental consideration for the supporters
  of peace, namely, that it is impossible for us to fightat the
  present time, isaltogether evaded. In reply—in
  reply, say, to my theses,* well-known to the authors since January
  8—they put forward exclusivelygeneral
  considerations, abstractions, which inevitably turn into empty
  phrases. For every general historical statement applied to a
  particular case without a special anal,ysis of the conditions of
  that particular case becomes an empty phrase.* See present
  edition, Vol. 26, pp. 442-50.-Ed.

Take the first proposition. Its whole “point” is a
  reproach, an exclamation, a declamation, an effort to
  “shame” the opponent, an appeal to sentiment. See what
  bad people youi are, they say: the imperialists are attacking you,
  “proclaiming” as their aim the suppression of the
  proletarian revolution, and you reply by agreeing to conclude peacel
  But our argumeiit, as the authors are aware, is that by rejecting an
  onerous peace weactually make it easierfor the enemy to
  suppress the prcletarian revolution. And this conclusion of ours is
  reinforced (for example, in my theses) by a number of very concrete
  indications about the state of the army, its class composition,
  etc. The authors have avoided everything concrete and the result
  they arrive at is an empty phrase. Forif the enemy are
  “proclaiming” that their aimis to suppress the
  revolution, then he is a bad revolutionary who by choosing an
  admittedly impossible form of resistance helps to achieve a
  transition from the “proclamation” to therealisationof the enemy’s aims.

Second argument: “reproaches” are being intensified. You,
 they sayu agree to peace at the first onslaught of the enemy .... Do
 the authors seriously suppose that this can be convincing for those
 who ever since January, long before the “onslaught ”,
 analysed the relationship of forces and the concrete conditions of
 the war at that time? Is it not phr~semaking if
 “reproach” is regarded as argument against analysis? ?

Agreeing to peace under the present conditions, we are told,
 “is a sihrrender of the foremost contingent of the
 international proletariat to the international bourgeoisie ”.

Again an empty phrase. General truths are inflated in such a way that
 they become untrue and are turned into declamation. The German
 bourgeoisie is not “international ”, for the Anglo-French
 eapitalistswelcomeour refusal to conclude
 peace. “Surrender ”, generally speaking, is a bad thing,
 but this praiseworthy truth does not decide every individual
 proposition, for refusal to fhght under obviously unfavourable
 conditions can also be called surrender, butsuch surrender is
 obligatory for a serious revolutionary. Agreeing to enter the Third
 Duma, the concluding of peace Witlh Stolypin, as the
 “Left” declamationists called it at that time, was also,
 generally speaking, a surrender.

We are the foremost contingent in tlhe seilse of the
 revolutionary beginning, that is indisputable, but in order to be the
 foremost contingent in the senso of a military clash with the forces
 of foremost imperialism, that ....[Here the
 maniuseript breaks off.—Ed.]

[1]This article examines the statement submitted to the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.) on February 22 by the “Left Communists” and signed by a group of members of the Central Committee and People’s Commissars-A. Lomov (G. I. Oppokov), M. S. Uritsky, N. I. Bukharin, A. S. Bubnov, V. M. Smirnov, I. N. Stukov, M. G. Bronsky, V. N. Yakovleva, A. P. Spunde, M. N. Pokrovsky and G. L. Pyatakov.

The copy of the statement on which Lenin made notes in preparation for quoting it in his article has not survived.